19 Jan 2008

So given the problems and confusion as I previously mentioned in Part 1 of this rant, I want to try out my latest revelation to foster open discussion. It pretty much sounds like my old view, but now enriched with extra details.

Let's first assume that Winter's Law exists in some form or another, despite the academic bickering on the exact details. Let's also assume that everything in PIE began with ejectives, and yet that ejectives only existed in some stage of Pre-IE, not PIE itself. Finally, let's assume that whatever phonetic qualities PIE *d and *g had, they were in some way recent derivatives of ejectives. Here below, I'll use the dental stop series of *t, *d and *dh as examples of the general 3-way contrast of PIE stops between what is traditionally described as "voiceless", "voiced" and "voiced aspirated".

Now, while Glottalic Theory explains that PIE's purported ejectives had mostly eroded into implosives or "preglottalized" phonemes in almost all dialects without explaining why exactly voiced*d was the overwhelmingly typical end result, my Hybrid Theory position has been that these stops were already voiced in PIE. Yet unlike Traditional Theory, I deduce that *d could not have simply been "plain". Rather, I feel that *dh should be considered "plain" for the same reasons as Glottalic Theory. Up to now, I've described this contrast as a three-state distinction of voice. I presumed that the difference between *d and *dh must have been in regards to the onset of voicing (VOT), the former being "semi-voiced" (as "d" is spoken in English) and the latter being "fully voiced" (as "d" is spoken in French). I've looked to languages like Thai and Korean as real-world examples of similar phonological constructs.

However, I have an even more accurate definition of *d and *dh that doesn't involve voicing as a marked feature at all. Instead, let's ponder on the possibility that *d was not merely "semi-voiced" but also had a marked phonation.[1] "Phonation" describes the way in which a sound is voiced and basically measures how loose or stiff vocal chords are as a sound is being pronounced. Stops in English, French and most other languages are described as "modal" (a.k.a. "plain voicing"). This is the default. However there are stops which are "creaky" or "breathy" as well. Creaky stops lie on the "stiff" end of the spectrum and sound just as they're described, while breathy stops are positioned on the slack side. Modal stops are in the middle, neither too stiff nor too slack. So let's explore the implications of a PIE model with creaky*d (i.e. "stiff" /d/) and modal*dh (i.e. plain ol' /d/).

In relation to PIE phonology, creaky voiced stops may seem like the "semi-voiced" stops I'm looking for because of the accompanying crackle in the throat that intermittantly allows air through a flapping narrow passage in the throat. Think of the sound as a voiced /d/ hidden behind a stream of glottal stops produced many times a second that turns this voicing on and off, giving it a distinctive, rumbling pitch. The weakening of ejectives to creaky voiced stops is a perfectly natural development[2] that only involves a marginal slackening of the glottis to allow some air through. The passage of air allows the possibility of voicing to exist afterall, which is not possible with the complete glottal closure of ejectives. No passage of air, no voice.

So if PIE *d were a creaky voiced stop, this would have implications for how we interpret Winter's Law in Balto-Slavic. If we take Kortlandt's account of it at face value, we would be expected to come up with a voiceless sound to explain the genesis of rising tone before *d. Yet, what if Kortlandt is wrong about Winter's Law as Miguel had surmised in the quote that I cited in Part 1? There's no guarantee that he's correct and there is no clear consensus on the issue so far, so let's assume instead that Kortlandt's formulation of Winter's Law is hiding a different reality, that Winter's Law is a rule that governs pretonic syllables only[3]. Now, we're not required to be bound by rules of tonogenesis because a syllable preceding a stressed syllable with falling or high-level pitch might very well develop a rising accent. How? Considering that the unstressed syllable would be relatively lower in pitch, the transition from the unstressed syllable's low pitch to the high pitch of the onset of the next syllable will unavoidably cause some degree of rising tone. With a shift in the position of stress, this non-distinctive rising tone in the unstressed syllable may eventually become distinctive from the pre-existing default accent of falling or high-level pitch.

If this is the more correct formulation of Winter's Law, then all we need to explain is the source of lengthening. However, this is now a piece of cake since creaky stops are known to lengthen preceding vowels by way of their accompanying laryngealization.

NOTES[1] Yallop/Fletcher, An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology (2007), p.53 (see link).[2] Fallon, The Synchronic and Diachronic Phonology of Ejectives (2002), p.285 (see link): "Or an ejective may undergo laryngealization in which the glottalic component bleeds into creaky voice so that eventually the whole segment becomes voiced and laryngealized, and eventually simply voiced." This seems to be precisely the evolutionary path taken by PIE: Pre-IE ejectives turn into creaky voiced stops in PIE which turn into plain voiced stops in most dialects of PIE. Since Glottalic Theory insists on ejectives in the PIE stage itself, it adds an extra phonetic step that isn't necessary to describe the data.[3] See Shintani, On Winter's law in Balto-Slavic, Apilku 5 (1985), p.273-296. The claim is that Winter's Law only operates on unstressed short vowels.

We could play with the idea though that, the unknown language that left behind large influences had voiceless aspirates.

Then, a similar situation as in Sanskrit could arise, that due to the introduction of a /th/ the modal /d/ shifted to /dh/, and even later the two aspirates merged in /th/. This explanation seems plausible, but hard to prove.

Phoenix: "In Sanskrit the Modal /d/ > /dh/ can be explained due to foreign introduction of voiceless aspirates, and thus Sanskrit trying to rebalance its phonological system."

No, that's a non-optimal solution. Foreign influence is unnecessary. A "phonation shift" is perfectly natural if you think of it as a "maximization of contrasts". My hunch is that the perceptual difference between "modal voiced stops" and "breathy voiced stops" is much greater than the perceptual difference between "creaky voiced stops" and "modal voiced stops". However, while the maximation of the contrast between these two series of stops would make phonetic distinctions acoustically clearer, it also breeds other imbalances in the system that would need to be corrected over time.

Right, but the important thing is that such a system wouldn't last long. If we understand the term "breathy voiced stop" as synonymous with "voiced aspirated stop", then it elucidates an imbalance in such a sound system which would lack the more basic voiceless aspirated stops.

There are a number of strategies for speakers to rebalance the sound system. One is to devoice *dʰ entirely to *tʰ (as in Greek); another is to somehow fill in the absent voiceless aspirate *tʰ (as in Sanskrit).

Referencing vague foreign influences to explain this is unnecessary because the imbalance of the system itself motivates these changes entirely.

Phoenix: What is harder to explain phonologically though, is the development of Greek voiceless aspirated from Model voiced consonants.

Are you talking about Grassman's Law where a sequence *DʰeDʰ with two aspirated stops is "de-aspirated" in the onset to *DeDʰ? Try another interpretation: During phonation shift, the modal *d of the onset (phonemicized as *dʰ according to traditional theory) remains modal while the second stop shifts to "breathy". In this scenario, the first stop resists change in order to avoid excess breathiness (and articulatory effort) in this syllable.

Maybe I should add for completeness, that if Grassman's Law surfaced already during this hypothetical common "phonation shift" between Proto-Hellenic and Proto-Indo-Iranian, then forms like Greek títhēmi would have to be explained as resulting from analogical pressures that forced *d to devoice along with *dʰ in the underlying post-Grassman's-Law form, *dídʰehmi.

Of course, it's admittedly simpler to suggest a "phonation shift" wave in the early PIE community with Grassman's Law emerging after the Greek change of *dʰ to *tʰ. But alas, it's even simpler yet to believe that aspiratory dissimilation in both dialects are independent innovations since this phenomenon is apparently fairly common crosslinguistically.

Glen, I think your last two blog posts lend support to the "IE Sprachbund" thesis. Let me explain.

Based on all the known IE languages, it seems that the non-ejective stops had aspirated/breathy-voiced allophones in free variation. Later on, due to changing conditions, different dialects modified their stop systems in different ways.

The big piece of evidence here is Balto-Slavic. Traditionally, the voiced-aspirated stops simply lost their aspiration and merged with the plain-voiced stops. However, I wonder if a better explanation would be that the creaky-voiced stops (from earlier ejectives) simply merged with the plain-voiced stops (traditional voiced-aspirated stops). Thus there would never have been phonemic aspiration/breathy voice in the branch of IE that turned into Balto-Slavic.

On a side note, I wonder if the palatalization seen in Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian is an areal feature. Uralic languages, which were nearby, also had palatalization.

Rob: "Based on all the known IE languages, it seems that the non-ejective stops had aspirated/breathy-voiced allophones in free variation."

No, because A) breathiness is a marked feature (i.e. extra effort to pronounce than modal /d/) and B)Grassman's Law is restricted precisely to dialects which would have undergone phonation shift. Your idea violates markedness principles, lacks a reason for the areal restriction of Grassman's Law, and is immediately counter to Occam's Razor (i.e. the solution with the least number of assumptions is the best solution). Your idea only offers obscurity in place of order.

Rob: "However, I wonder if a better explanation would be that the creaky-voiced stops (from earlier ejectives) simply merged with the plain-voiced stops (traditional voiced-aspirated stops)."

But Winter's Law*requires* that *d and *dh are distinct phonemes in early Proto-Balto-Slavic in order to explain vowel lengthening before PIE *d and never*dh. Of course we all know there is a later merger of these two sounds, however you're overlooking a lot that I just discussed (as well as the references I supplied).

Rob: "On a side note, I wonder if the palatalization seen in Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian is an areal feature. Uralic languages, which were nearby, also had palatalization."

Glen: "No, because A) breathiness is a marked feature (i.e. extra effort to pronounce than modal /d/) and B) Grassman's Law is restricted precisely to dialects which would have undergone phonation shift. Your idea violates markedness principles, lacks a reason for the areal restriction of Grassman's Law, and is immediately counter to Occam's Razor (i.e. the solution with the least number of assumptions is the best solution). Your idea only offers obscurity in place of order."

How do you explain the free variation of glottalization -- a marked feature -- in English coda stops?

It seems to me that, for a given language, any phonetic feature which is neither a phoneme nor a conditioned allophone can be in free variation with any other such feature. This can happen regardless of markedness. For example, if I understand you correctly, it would be impossible for any English speakers to ever pronounce /k/ as [q] (which is more marked than [k]) adjacent to a back vowel.

Secondly, I don't think my hypothesis runs counter to Occam's Razor. In fact, I think it may satisfy it better. It's easier to explain a phonetic feature becoming phonemic if it already exists, either as a conditioned or as a freely variant allophone.

Thirdly, I don't see how Grassman's Law cannot still apply. Languages affected by it had apparently regularized the "aspirated" (i.e. breathy-voiced) allophones of the originally plain-voiced stops before the ejective -> creaky-voiced stops became plain-voiced. As you say, this was likely due to maintain sufficient "phonemic distance" between the two stop series. The voiceless stops, presumably being the least marked of all, were not affected.

Glen: "But Winter's Law *requires* that *d and *dh are distinct phonemes in early Proto-Balto-Slavic in order to explain vowel lengthening before PIE *d and never *dh. Of course we all know there is a later merger of these two sounds, however you're overlooking a lot that I just discussed (as well as the references I supplied)."

Sorry, what I meant was that the merger happened after Winter's Law (presuming, of course, that it is valid).

Glen: "Hahaha, yes, and curiously also Tocharian had its own seperate palatalization as it moved eastwards. Already covered that. Look carefully at my isogloss map posted in Markedness and the uvular proposal in PIE."

Yes, I remember reading about that. Pardon me for thinking out loud. :P

Rob: How do you explain the free variation of glottalization -- a marked feature -- in English coda stops?

Contrast maximization. In English, the phoneme /tʰ/, like any phoneme in any language, has a few allophones available. Generally speaking, the phoneme is distinguished from /d/ in terms of the absence of voice and the presence of aspiration, but various allophones do occur. Word-final positions are notorious for making contrasts difficult to maintain, which is why word-final neutralization (as in German) is commonplace. In English however, to reinforce contrast between final "t" and final "d", preglottalization as well as vowel lengthening/shortening of a preceding vowel is used to make the contrast more audible. That being said, there are no English phonemes that can be said to be preglottalized because this is a phonetic feature, not phonemic.

Rob: "It seems to me that, for a given language, any phonetic feature which is neither a phoneme nor a conditioned allophone can be in free variation with any other such feature."

You're basically saying that both *d and *dh, being creaky and breathy respectively, forced the speaker to go through extra articulatory effort that wouldn't be needed if one of the two were modal. Such overexertion is very unstable.

Furthermore, there are IE dialects that suggest that *dh was still modal rather than breathy, otherwise we would have to propose that phonation shift pushed the two phonemes foward to breathy and back again! A modal voiced *dh has to be the original state of affairs if *d was originally an ejective. So yes, it seems to violate Occam's Razor.

Earliest IE (or maybe better Pre-IE) distinguished the following co-articulated features phonemically in its stops: voicing and glottalization. This means that aspiration was not a phonemic feature; thus it could appear in free variation. Now a glottalized aspirated stop does not make much sense, and may even be impossible from an articulatory point of view. So it seems highly unlikely that aspiration occurred even as a free variant among the glottalized stops. This leaves the voiced and voiceless stops.

Later on, glottalization was weakened to creaky voice. This is phonetically more similar to plain voicing than glottalization is. At this point, in some IE dialects, the freely-variant aspiration seems to have become a required coarticulation with the plain-voiced stops. In other dialects (namely Balto-Slavic), there seems to have been no contrast maximization between the glottalized and plain-voiced stops.

So to recap, we first had the following (using the coronal series as an example; brackets indicate free variation):

*t[h] *t' *d[h]

This developed into (using ~ to indicate creaky voice):

*t[h] *d~ *d[h]

Some dialects maximized the contrast of the latter two (e.g. Hellenic and Indo-Iranian):

*t *d~ *dh

And others did not (e.g. Balto-Slavic):

*t *d~ *d

Does this make sense at all? Obviously this is not the whole picture, but I think it helps with the relative glottochronology between a few important dialect groups.

I just don't see why PIE speakers would go through the extra articulatory effort of aspirating voiced stops unless there was a concrete purpose at the time. There doesn't seem to be a motivation for breathy phonation until the ejectives become creaky and start pushing the other voiced series to the breathy end of the phonation spectrum. I think you're starting to split hairs. The main point of my post here is simply to suggest that giving PIE *d the phonetic value of creaky voice (/d̰/) is a worthy compromise to both the Traditional Theory's "plain" *d which violates crosslinguistic typology and Glottalic Theory's "ejective" *t' which fails to explain the reflexes plausibly.

If we're trying to find the one antecedent of all known PIE languages, then it's sufficient to ascribe *d with creaky voice and *dh with modal voice. I'm not disagreeing with the changes you propose per se, but anything beyond this core explanation is post-IE. Breathy voice can't simply be "allophonic". The change is wholesale, affecting all environments. So it's as simple as this: Breathy phonation is necessarily a post-IE feature.

I'm beginning to realize that 'stop harmony' in PIE roots (ie. the avoidance of both voiceless and voiced stops cooccurring in the same root) might in fact undermine my initial argument against reconstructing breathy stops in PIE itself.

We might be able to combine the Hybrid Theory above with an explanation of stop harmony using breathy phonation across vowels in a pre-IE stage.